What’s a way you battle loneliness?

3 comments

1. I get out there and try to relieve other people’s loneliness. I do this by trying to connect with people on an emotional level. So instead of a greeting like, “Hi, how are you,” (perfunctory smile) I’ll give them a bigger smile and a much WARMER greeting like, “HEY, I haven’t SEEN you in a while, how’s it GOING?” and take a true interest in them.

2. Learn to find contentment in solitude. Spend time in nature alone with no devices. Get comfortable with who you are. Loneliness is more to do with not enjoying yourself than being around others

3. It’s hard, but the thing that got me through was knowing it would not last forever. Don’t battle it, wait it out, and while you wait find some useful things to occupy yourself that might feed your spirit. Music often helps too. Allowing us to feel the emotional experience.

   I moved alone to a new country and took years to connect with anyone. The problem wasnt other people, it was me. I was in an odd place inside and really desperate and that made it worse. I was also fighting some addictions, having a midlife crisis, and having to change my old ways of behaviour. It was a difficult time.

   I was lucky in that I found a beautiful spot to do it, live alone, and had work but it wasn’t easy. I was skint and working too hard and not connecting. At the weekends I was near a beach and that actually made it worse in some ways because I would go out amongst people all connecting and feel even more of a loser. but… there was a positive thing to all this and once I saw it… admittedly coming out the other side of that period in my life, I realised I would never be troubled by it again because… **Time is the cure**… nothing stays the same and loneliness cannot last forever either.

   Give it time. and while you are waiting, practice relaxing, learning ways to be in yourself. But also if you can find a group meetup that is about connection. I am “tough guy” type of person, but was going to Tantra events – before they got all weird – and it was enough to get a fix of human contact to get me through. Sometimes just a hug was enough, you know. The other thing I did, was go to a lot of Vipassana retreats and there I learnt meditation which helped me with the addictions I was battling at the time. I also did drumming, learnt african drums and that was actually a very powerful antidote to the depression that loomed over me often in that time.

   If you feel lonely, find something useful to do, but that is going to be connecting you to other humans. We can’t live in a vaccuum, no one can, but sometimes we have to, life forces us into that situation. We all crave human touch and connection. So find a way to get that fix, but without the issues that come with emotional clinging and relationships when you are needy, until you find your inner balance again. you need free hugs but without deals attached, like having to give out sex and so on.

   Being that alone made me stronger but it could have destroyed me and the times I struggled most were when people around me killed themselves during that period and weirdly a few did. That was hard. but again, I just went to group meetings and did Vipassana and drummed when I could and then went to work and waited the grief out.

   *grief* is another big aspect of this, we need to learn how to grieve well. We all have suppressed grief in the modern world and I think that is a big part of this issue. but that’s for another post…

   If you like reading I can recommend two interesting books. Malidome Some – The Healing wisdom of Africa, and Martin Prechtel – The Secret Talkings of the Jaguar. The Indigenous understood community and how it feeds the soul. When we feel held in community, or when we learn to grieve well and through that learn to connect with our ancestors who have been and left this place and know the score, then we no longer feel alone when we a solitary.